"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the
animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel
nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest
lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen."
Samuel Adams, (1722-1803)

Monday, April 30, 2012

Fox & Friends attacked the Paycheck Fairness Act,
legislation aimed at addressing the wage inequality between men and
women, with Fox host Dan Perino claiming the legislation is just a
"distraction." In fact, wage inequality is real: Study after study has
found that women are paid less than men. Read More

Mitt Romney gopher Eric Fehrnstrom is on a one-man mission to rescue
political comedy this campaign season, bless his heart. First there was that time
he gleefully marched out in front of the teevee camera to call his boss
an Etch a Sketch, for being shifty.

Now he is hilariously running
around claiming that Mitt Romney is a terrible secret socialist who masterminded the popular auto industry bailout despite his extremely public stance against it. “His position on the bailout was exactly what President Obama followed,” Fehrnstrom said. It is a bit of a weird thing to say! READ MORE »

Uh oh you guys. A forensic technician for the Los Angeles coroner
died and it might have been poison. And he may or may not have
personally worked on Andrew Breitbart’s corpse. And it was the same day
good ol’ Sheriff Joe “announced probable cause for forgery in President
Obama’s birth certificate.” And this is all in the same story because?
Can’t help you there, dudes. Just, you know, “WND.”

Medical examiners in Los Angeles are investigating the
possible poisoning death of one of their own officials who may have
worked on the case of Andrew Breitbart, the conservative firebrand who
died March 1, the same day Sheriff Joe Arpaio announced probable cause
for forgery in President Obama’s birth certificate. READ MORE »

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Vice President Joe Biden reiterated the President’s bottom-line
election-year pitch on Thursday: “Osama bin Laden is dead and General
Motors is alive.” The opposite might be true, Biden said, if Mitt Romney
had been president.

But top Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom is also giving credit to his candidate for the auto industry’s success. At a Saturday forum hosted by the Washington Post, Fehrnstrom said that Obama’s auto industry rescue was successful because it was exactly what Romney himself proposed.

“[Romney’s] position on the bailout was exactly what President Obama
followed,” Fehrnstrom said. “He said, ‘If you want to save the auto
industry, just don’t write them a check. That will seal their doom. What
they need to do is go through a managed bankruptcy process.’”

“Consider that the crown jewel,” Fehrnstrom said. “The only
economic success that President Obama has had is because he followed
Mitt Romney’s advice.”

Romney’s position on the auto industry bailout is notoriously vague.
His more recent declarations on the bailout have portrayed it as a
single event in 2009, rather than what it was: a rolling series of
emergency measures, many of which he opposed, during the final months of
the Bush presidency and the initial months of the Obama administration
which culminated in a managed bankruptcy process.

In 2008, Romney wrote a New York Times op-ed titled “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt”
in which he argued for a “managed bankruptcy” to help turn the industry
around. “The federal government should provide guarantees for
post-bankruptcy financing and assure car buyers that their warranties
are not at risk,” he wrote.

Notably, Romney was opposed to direct government financing of the
industry at a time when the capital markets were reeling and private
financing had dried up. The dispute over government versus private financing of the bailout remains a key underlying difference between Romney and Obama’s preferred bailout measures.

When the Obama administration did force a managed bankruptcy process, Romney praised the President, calling it the “course I recommended a number of months ago” in a 2009 speech.

When the GOP presidential primary reached Michigan, the heart of the
auto industry, Romney was stuck between a rock and a hard place. He had
to distinguish himself from the President while persuading Michigan
voters he wouldn’t have left the American auto industry — and their
livelihoods — to fail. In February, he focused his criticism of the
bailout on unions, penning a Detroit News op-ed in which he called the
bailout “crony capitalism on a grand scale.” Romney was criticized by
Michigan papers — including in editorials endorsing him
— for his position on the bailout. The managed bankruptcy process would
never have worked without government money behind it, the editorials
reasoned.

Now, as the presumptive nominee, Romney seems to be backtracking to a
version of his 2009 take on the bailout. And Fehrnstrom does have a
point in that Obama did indeed seek a managed bankruptcy — though it’s
weakened by Romney’s own vagueness on how to finance the process and the
fact that he has changed his tune several times.

The Obama campaign, for its part, is not about to share credit with
Romney. Obama campaign spokesperson Lis Smith told the Post that despite
Fehrnstrom’s comments, Romney would have let the industry fail. “GM and
Chrysler are in existence, creating jobs, and posting some of their
most profitable quarters in history because President Obama bet on
American workers,” Smith said. “If Mitt Romney had had his way, the
American auto industry and the millions of jobs it supports would cease
to exist.”

Saturday, April 28, 2012

President Obama, during his White House Correspondents Dinner speech, joked about the “secret agenda” he has planned for his second term:

“In my first term, I sang Al Green. In my second term, Young Jeezy.
In my first term we ended the war in Iraq. In my second term, I will win
the war on Christmas. In my first term we repealed the policy known as
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. In my second term, we will replace it with a
policy known as it’s raining men. In my first term, we passed health
care reform. In my second term, I guess I’ll pass it again.

Oh Mitt. Mittele. Bubbeh. Have you ever considered just not talking? Here you are, acting as a human Sominex, and telling an inspirational story
about your buddy Jimmy John, and how he had a great idea for a
business, so he just borrowed $20,000 from his parents, and the rest was
history!

Are you old enough to remember when George H.W. Bush, well into his
only term, had a photo op at a grocery store and was wowed by the
electric scanner the checker was using? That was considered “out of
touch” back then even though it maybe wasn’t very fair to expect POTUS
to do his own grocery shopping.

But here, Der Mittenmonster really seems to believe
that everybody’s got 20 large lying around to pump into their kids’ hot
app idea or weed delivery service. You’d think he would know better,
since he’s been unceasingly slagging Bammerz for causing the US to go
into such a terrible Depression by having been president from 2000 to
2008. Maybe Romney thinks “Depression” means the poor only have $30 big
in checking? If you’re in financial difficulties, fellows, may I suggest
cutting the chauffeur to part time, and perhaps R&Ring in Palm
Beach instead of the Maldives? Oh well. Let us all eat horsey cake.READ MORE »

In what is becoming a regular event, yet another company has dropped
the American Legislative Exchange Council, the corporate front group
that helped spread Stand Your Ground gun laws and voter suppression
efforts. According to the Center for Media and Democracy, Kaplan, Inc., a
for-profit education group owned by the Washington Post Company, has
publicly announced
that it will not renew its membership. ALEC has come under heavy
scrutiny from progressive groups, such as Color of Change, that have
been pressuring corporations like State Farm and AT&T to sever ties
with the conservative group. See all the companies that have dumped ALEC
here.

“We face an abundance of hard choices,” said Ol’ Walnuts, John
McCain, discussing the Senate’s vote to reauthorize the Violence Against
Women Act. “Divisive slogans and declaring of phony wars are intended
to avoid those hard choices and to escape paying a political price for
doing so.”

It is good to know that the War on Women is divisive and phony (and anyway Obama started it)! Then about five seconds after McCain finished talking, 31 male Republican senators voted against
reauthorizing VAWA (which provides funding for domestic violence
shelters and law enforcement and all sorts of other special-interest
nonsense, because it might cause somebody to stop beating Messicans and
gays. READ MORE »

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Democrats have rounded on revelations about a private dinner of House Republicans on inauguration day in 2009 in which they plotted a campaign of obstruction against newly installed president Barack Obama.

During
a lengthy discussion, the senior GOP members worked out a plan to
repeatedly block Obama over the coming four years to try to ensure he
would not be re-elected.

The disclosures – described as
"appalling and sad" by Obama's chief strategist David Axelrod
– undermine Republican claims that the president alone is to blame for
the partisan deadlock in Washington.

A detailed account of who was
present at the dinner on that January 20 night and the plan they
worked out to bring down Obama is provided by Robert Draper in 'Do Not
Ask What Good We Do: Inside the US House of Representatives', published
this week.

In his book, Draper opens with the heady atmosphere in
Washington on the days running up to the inauguration and the day
itself, which attracted 1.8 million to the mall to witness Obama being
sworn in as America's first black president.

Those numbers
contributed to a growing sense of unease among Republicans as much the
defeat in the White House race the previous November. The 15 Republicans
were in a sombre mood as they gathered at the Caucus Room in
Washington, an upscale restaurant where a New York strip steak costs
$51.

Attending the dinner were House members Eric Cantor, Jeb Hensarling, Pete Hoekstra, Dan Lungren, Kevin McCarthy, Paul Ryan
and Pete Sessions. From the Senate were Tom Coburn, Bob Corker, Jim
DeMint, John Ensign and Jon Kyl. Others present were former House
Speaker and future – and failed – presidential candidate Newt Gingrich and the Republican strategist Frank Luntz, who organised the dinner and sent out the invitations.

The
dinner table was set in a square at Luntz's request so everyone could
see one another and talk freely. The session lasted four hours and by
the end the sombre mood had lifted: they had conceived a plan. They
would take back the House in November 2010, which they did, and use it
as a spear to mortally wound Obama in 2011 and take back the Senate and
White House in 2012, Draper writes.

"If you act like you're the
minority, you're going to stay in the minority," said Keven McCarthy,
quoted by Draper. "We've gotta challenge them on every single bill and
challenge them on every single campaign."

The Republicans have
done that, bringing Washington to a near standstill several times during
Obama's first term over debt and other issues.

On the more
immediate future, they discussed targets such as Charlie Rangel,
chairman of the House ways and means committee, who Gingrich said was
vulnerable over his personal taxes. They would also target Treasury
secretary Tim Geithner, demonstrate united and unyielding opposition to
the president's economic policies, and release negative ads against
vulnerable Democratic members of Congress.

Draper quotes
Gingrich at the end of the meal: "You will remember this day. You'll
remember this as the day the seeds of 2012 were sown."

Axelrod,
who is based at Obama's re-election campaign headquarters in Chicago,
condemned the revelation as "sad, appalling but not terribly
surprising".

A CBS radio reporter sent White House press secretary Jay Carney, along
with President Obama and Vice President Biden, to detention today. It’s
called accountability, folks. Their crime: Mentioning the death of Osama
bin Laden in speeches so often that it’s beginning to look like they’re using this for what experts call “political advantage.” If true, this would be… illegal… bad… something else… huh? READ MORE »

Over two hundred thousand people in Michigan are unhappy about a
state law that allows Republican governor Rick Snyder to declare martial
financial law in struggling municipalities and bypass local governments
by installing wee tyrant “emergency financial managers” who are allowed
to void the official status of public unions, sell off public assets,
declare dead cat carcass legal tender, etc. Whatever they want, as long
as all the budget savings are immediately passed on in the form of
corporate tax cuts.

So the unhappy citizens all signed petitions to
force the state to hold a public referendum on the law and then promptly
submitted the signatures. What do you think of that, Republican members
of the state body responsible for certifying the petitions? Let’s check
the report:
“Republicans cited the wrong font size on the title of the petitions
circulated by Stand Up For Democracy, a coalition of groups that
launched the petition campaign, as the reason for not approving the
initiative for the ballot. Opponents gathered 203,238 signatures,
roughly 40,000 more than needed to get a repeal question on the ballot.”
READ MORE »

Former Reagan Navy Secretary John Lehman, a Romney surrogate, held a troubling conference call today
that should terrify able-bodied, capitalist Cold Warriors everywhere:
“We’re seeing the Soviets pushing into the Arctic with no response from
us.” Filthy conniving Reds… you can never trust that Brezhnev. One day
it’s detente, next day it’s “castrate Santa; torch the elves.” And yet
Obama says nothing; mostly because it’s 2012. READ MORE »

In 2005, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) heaped praise
on Ayn Rand, a 20th-century libertarian novelist best known for her
philosophy that centered on the idea that selfishness is “virtue”. The
New Republic wrote:

“The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand,” Ryan said at a D.C. gathering four years ago honoring the author of “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead.”

Ryan also noted
in a 2003 interview with the Weekly Standard, “I give out ‘Atlas
Shrugged’ as Christmas presents, and I make all my interns read it.
Well… I try to make my interns read it.”

“I reject her philosophy,” Ryan says firmly.
“It’s an atheist philosophy. It reduces human interactions down to mere
contracts and it is antithetical to my worldview. If somebody is going
to try to paste a person’s view on epistemology to me, then give me
Thomas Aquinas,” who believed that man needs divine help in the pursuit
of knowledge. “Don’t give me Ayn Rand,” he says.

It’s understandable why Ryan would back off his former political
muse. She described altruism as “evil,” condemned Christianity for
advocating compassion for the poor, viewed the feminist movement as
“phony,” and called Arabs “almost totally primitive savages.”............

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

It was only a couple of months ago that Mitt Romney told a Republican
debate audience in Arizona that the state was a “model” for the nation
on immigration. If elected president, he said, he would immediately drop
the lawsuits that the Obama administration has filed “against Arizona
and other states that are trying to do the job Barack Obama isn’t
doing.”

That was then. This is now.

Romney, who has all but wrapped up the Republican nomination, told
supporters recently that the party’s hopes in November were doomed
unless it increased its appeal to Latinos.

Right away, campaign aides told the New York Times that Romney hadn’t
been referring to Arizona’s groundbreaking immigration law — the one
allowing police to demand identification from anyone they detain and
suspect of being illegal immigrants — as a model for the nation. They
said he actually meant the state’s requirement that employers check the
legal status of job applicants on the federal government’s E-Verify
computer database, something he’d also discussed in the debate.

In January, Romney had welcomed the endorsement of Kris Kobach,
draftsman of the Arizona immigration law, and described Kobach as a
member of his “team” that would “take forceful steps to curtail illegal
immigration” and support the efforts of states like Arizona. Last week,
the Romney campaign described Kobach as merely a “supporter.”

An Etch A Sketch moment, where the candidate recasts his views in
hopes of appealing to a wider electorate? This bit of spin looks like it
goes a step further, into the terrain of trying to rewrite the
candidate’s own history.

First of all, the E-Verify requirement isn’t part of Arizona’s “show
us your papers” immigration law, SB1070, which was the subject of a
hearing Wednesday in the Supreme Court. E-Verify was part of a different
law that the high court upheld in a separate case last year. And the
suit challenging that law wasn’t filed by the Obama administration, but
by business groups led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which
particularly objected to provisions revoking the licenses of companies
that repeatedly hired illegal immigrants.

So when Romney in February denounced Obama’s suit against the Arizona
law and promised to drop the case if elected president, he could only
have been referring to the law that the administration is actually
challenging before the Supreme Court, SB1070. That’s also the law that’s
been a model for Alabama, Georgia and other states, and the one that
Romney’s Arizona audience heard him proclaim as a model for the nation.
Even if his campaign now denies it.

President Obama has urged lawmakers to provide relief on student loan
debt by preventing interest rates for federally subsidized loans from
doubling. Conservative media have responded by ignoring the economic
benefits of such a program and instead claiming Obama is trying to
"bribe" college students with "gimmicks" and "giveaway[s]" in an effort
to get reelected. Read More

A group of weepy warlords in the Senate including ol’ Jowls McGoo Joe Lieberman are busily soiling their Depends
over a $487 billion planned reduction in defense spending over the next
decade that was included in the White House fiscal year 2013 budget.

But know who is not having a whiny meltdown over the proposed cuts? The
people in charge of the military are not! Because they helped to design the cuts,
along with the White House. And this is trying the patience of various
Republican Senator humans and Joe Lieberman who refuse to have their
naps until everyone goes back to the old system of military
appropriations, where the Pentagon sends over its thirty-mile long list
of every wish it ever had scribbled in blood collected from Afghan
corpses and Congress says sure, the FDA does not really need to screen baby formula for arsenic this year. That system worked so well! READ MORE »

Well, he would know,
amirite? Anyway, you are probably wondering what Ol’ Good Government
Bama did THIS time — aside from just cold unapologetically insisting on
being a registered Democrat — and it is this: that awful Vegas boondoggle
by those GSA idiots (which everyone agrees was terrible and
ridiculous), and the investment in Solyndra, a green energy company that
went bankrupt. And … that’s it? Yes, that is it.

So the terrible and
ridiculous (everyone agrees!) GSA event that cost in the realm of
$800,000, and an investment in Solyndra that soured, puts Obama above
the Teapot Dome scandal, above Abramoff, above Tricky Dick Nixon, and
above St. Ronald Reagan’s Iran Contra, November Surprise, and 138 officials convicted of criminal misconduct?

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Two leading conservative political organizations say they are
stepping up coordinated efforts to repeal state-level renewable energy
targets.

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) — a “stealth business lobbyist”
that works with corporate interests to help them write and implement
“model” legislation — says it may soon start crafting laws designed to
kill or weaken state targets for renewable electricity, heating and
fuels.

ALEC has come under fire
in recent weeks for its support of voter ID laws and the controversial
Stand-Your-Ground law that opponents blame for the death of Florida teen
Trayvon Martin. After progressive groups began an aggressive campaign
to educate the public about ALEC, 13 companies have since pulled their membership from the organization.

Last July, Bloomberg Newsacquired tax documents
showing that Koch Industries, Exxon Mobil and other energy companies
paid membership fees to ALEC in order to help write legislation
repealing carbon pollution reduction programs in states around country.

Bloombergnow reports that ALEC is looking to take aim at renewable energy programs in states:

ALEC, a group of state lawmakers and corporations
recently criticized for its support of Stand-Your-Ground laws
highlighted in the Florida shooting of Trayvon Martin, may
write model legislation for state lawmakers to repeal or weaken the
mandates later this year, said Todd Wynn, energy, environment and
agriculture task force director for the group, in an interview. Stand-Your-Ground laws allows citizens to use force when threatened, even when they can retreat.
The group may also develop an “energy freedom” index that ranks states based on regulation, market intervention and taxes.

ALEC has already attempted to write legislation
preventing targets for renewable energy on the federal level. As
nothing substantive has happened nationally, it seems ALEC is now
preparing to take its corporate-influenced legislation to the 29 states
that actually have targets in place.

According to the Center for Media and Democracy, Peabody Energy — the
largest private coal company in the world — is a major underwriter for
ALEC and sits on the organization’s Private Enterprise Board.

Americans for Tax Reform, the infamous anti-tax organization run by
Grover Norquist, also says it is taking a more aggressive approach to
opposing renewable energy targets. According to Bloomberg News, the
group is urging its members to “speak out” against renewable energy
promotion policies.

The organization has falsely claimed that such targets are costly to ratepayers.

In fact, no official analysis has found that state-level renewable
energy targets specifically increase energy prices. While some states
have seen increases in rates over the years, a recent analysis from the
Center for American Progress found that clean energy targets had no statistically significant impact on those price changes.

Despite the real-world evidence that clean energy is increasingly cost-competitive and economically beneficial to states,
the sector is under attack. The industry should be prepared for a more
aggressive campaign from organizations like ALEC and Americans for Tax
Reform on the state level.

http://mediamatters.org/research/201204250004Declaring that he "has had enough" of "national news
programs" that mislead American voters, Fox News host Bill O'Reilly said
he will now aim to tell viewers "every time I see craziness in the
national media during the campaign." However, the examples of
"craziness" O'Reilly cited, including the myth that "Obama was not born
in America," have all been promoted on Fox News -- something he did not
mention................

In an emotional speech about the difficulty of motherhood and life on
the campaign trail, Ann Romney used an odd choice of words to discuss
mothers who are forced to work while raising their children.

Ann Romney was at the center of a national discussion recently after a
Democratic consultant charged that the would-be future first lady
couldn’t possibly understand the plight of working mothers because she
had the luxury to stay home and devote herself full time to raising her
kids. The Romney campaign fired back, accusing Democrats of lacking respect for stay at home moms.

The issue was largely dismissed after a few days as a ginned-up “silly season” controversy,
but Ann Romney’s comments last night at the Connecticut Republican
Party’s Prescott Bush Awards Dinner could potentially reignite the
issue. After discussing how she understands the challenges mothers face,
Romney said, according to BuzzFeed:

Romney alluded to the fact that not all women can stay at home saying, “I
love the fact that there are women out there who don’t have a choice
and they must go to work and they still have to raise the kids. Thank goodness that we value those people too. And sometimes life isn’t easy for any of us.”

It seems Romney was trying to express empathy for women who don’t
have the option to stay at home, as she did. But the comment that she
“love[s]” that some women “don’t have a choice” and must work is
unusual, to say the least, and could lead to a new round of charges that
the Romneys don’t understand average Americans, given their enormous
wealth.

Breitbart.com is misrepresenting statements by Van Jones about the
public health benefits of environment regulation. Breitbart wrote that
Jones "claimed the right is waging an open campaign and willing to kill
children to weaken the EPA to create a new job," which is not at all
what Jones said in the video that the sites used. Read More

Monday, April 23, 2012

One thing we at Wonkette HQ don’t “get” is the inescapable conclusion in
American life that being “fiscally conservative” is somehow synonymous
with being “fiscally prudent.” Case in point numero one: deadbeat Tea
Party Congressman Joe Walsh, who is so fiscally conservative
he lives in his office and refuses to pay child support! Case in point
numero zwei: check-kiting gypsy Newt Gingrich buying his special lady so many whore diamonds and then stiffing that poor Las Vegas businessman
(and everyone else) on his bills.

Case in point all of the others:
cutting taxes in the middle of two wars and conducting them off-book;
threatening to default
on our national debt by not raising the debt ceiling; and pretty much
every other thing they have done since maybe Eisenhower. But the
Minnesota GOP is something special in this regard: they are being evicted from their headquarters for owing almost $100 large in back rent! READ MORE »

Ha ha, the Pew Research Center apparently paid researchers actual money
to produce a study of election coverage bias when they could have just
sent someone wandering down to the Kmart parking lot to ask the first
person lumped atop a Hoveround with a “Sarah Palin 2016″ bumper sticker
duct-taped to the back of it and gotten the same answer for free: the
coven of liberal elites in the lamestream media are lately skewing positive
in coverage of their beloved liberal elitist Harvard sap, Mitt Romney.
In contrast, the media has taken a net overall crap on the campaign of constitutional rights-murdering Reaganite warlord Barack Obama since the start of the year. What gives? READ MORE »

Here is a very important regional political update that you will not
want to miss: famous dingbat and U.S. Senate candidate Orly Taitz has been snubbed
for the endorsement of the California Republican Assembly. Orly Taitz
has considered all the reasons why this might be the case, and
Republican racism against white people is the obvious culprit. This
mostly irrelevant wingnut endorsement has gone to some guy “Al Ramirez,”
see. So let Orly Taitz, speaker of Spanish, go ahead and translate the taco talk for you: “Ramirez” is a Hispanic name. CONSPIRACY. READ MORE »

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Richard Grenell, Mitt Romney’s brand new spokesperson on national
security and foreign policy, has deleted hundreds of tweets in which he
made condescending and sexist remarks about several women and Democratic
politicians, including Hillary Clinton, Michelle Obama, and Callista Gingrich.

On Friday afternoon, Grenell still featured a link to his personal site (http://www.richardgrenell.com) on his Twitter profile, which then showed that he had tweeted 7,577 times, according to a screenshot
taken Friday by The Huffington Post. By Sunday morning, Grenell’s
Twitter feed only listed 6,759 tweets and his personal site is no longer available.

MSNBC host Rachel Maddow, who’s been a target of Grenell’s tweets,
pointed out that his comments about women might not go over well with
voters, wondering
on her show if there’s “any sign that they understand that a long,
string of really nasty, sexist tweets about Callista Gingrich’s
appearance might be alienating to people who might otherwise consider
voting for Mr. Romney.”

Grenell offered a general apology to Politico on Friday for making fun of the Gingriches and other prominent Americans, including many women:

my tweets were written to be tongue-in-cheek and humorous but I can
now see how they can also be hurtful. I didn’t mean them that way and
will remove them from twitter. I apologize for any hurt they caused.

Apart from Grenell’s reputation for harsh remarks on Twitter, he has a
reputation for being difficult with the press and dedicated posts on
his now defunct personal website to lampooning members of the media. From HuffPo:

Reuters veteran Irwin Arieff told The Huffington Post that he’s
“appalled to hear that the Romney campaign has hired Mr. Grenell in any
capacity.” In an email response, Arieff, who worked over two decades at Reuters, including seven years covering the U.N, said he found Grenell “to be the most dishonest and deceptive press person I ever worked with.”“He often lied, even more frequently offered half answers or withheld
information that would weaken his case or reflect poorly on his
ideological point of view,” Arieff said. “He was always argumentative
with the press, castigating reporters for asking questions he did not
like, and calling them to criticize them for writing articles he did not like.”

A recent New York Times article highlighted two studies that
the article claimed "question the pairing of food deserts and obesity"
and may "raise questions about the efforts to combat the obesity
epidemic simply by improving access to healthy foods." While right-wing
media have seized on the article to claim that food deserts are a
"make-believe" issue, food experts have called the Times article
"sloppy" and have said the two studies it highlights are "definitely
outliers," in the face of "over 50 studies" in the past three years
finding "the opposite." Read More

That Mitt Romney was such a care-free goofball when he was trying to win
the nomination, never asking anything of anybody. He would like to
thank all of those friendly folks across the country who turned his lil’
old aw-shucks candidacy into the powerhouse that it is today. Good
times. But guess what? That primary phase is all over. From here on out, YOU WILL OBEY MITT ROMNEY OR DIE. HAVE YOU SIGNED THE PLEDGE, SLAVE? READ MORE »

Mitt Romney is touring America for some reason, and on Thursday he was
in Lorain, Ohio, at a National Gypsum plant that is no longer open,
which he LOVES to do despite the fact that he was complicit in the
closure of more things than many presidents. During this sadsack
appearance the presumptive/uous Republican nominee said the reason that
the plant is no longer open is President Obama and his failed
somethings.

Curiously, the plant actually closed in 2008,
when George W. Bush was president. Then, referring to a speech that
Obama gave before the financial crisis even rose up from the earth’s
bog, Romney said that the President has clearly failed in his inability
to, um, predict that that thing would happen, etc. READ MORE »

In her new book, Fast and Furious: Barack Obama's Bloodiest Scandal and its Shameless Cover-up,
Townhall news editor Katie Pavlich offers up a number of false and
misleading claims about the ATF's fatally flawed Operation Fast and
Furious.

In doing so Pavlich baselessly suggests that high-ranking
Justice Department officials were aware of that operation's use of the
tactic of gunwalking, in which agents knowingly allowed guns to be
trafficked across the border to Mexico in order to identify other
members of a trafficking network. Read More

Media conservatives are pushing the narrative that Republican
presidential candidate Mitt Romney's attacks against President Obama
over the economy will be effective because Obama favored health care
reform rather than focusing on "fixing the economy."

However, this
narrative falters when confronted with the facts, including that Obama
pushed through the first of many economic initiatives a month after he
was elected -- more than a year before health care reform became law. Read More

What kind of underwear do you have on? Are they magical? No? Outta here! Bain Capital, a job creating powerhouse established by America’s number one job creator Mitt Romney,
is being sued by a group of people that claim they were fired for not
being part of the Mormon church (LDS). This rogue group of secular sweat
hogs were threatening the very foundation of ethics and morals Bain was built on.
It was time to call out Romney Rooter and snake out these infiltrators
of normalcy and make sure that the pains in Bain go mainly down the
drain. READ MORE »

Like it says dudes. His Lord High Hairgel Mittens Of Romney will put on his holy gown and tassel
and get down and boogie with the common rubes of Jerry Falwell’s
Liberty “University” for a commencement speech where he will undoubtedly
say awesome shit like “some of my best friends own universities” and
then tell all the chicks that it is cute that they went to college, did
they get their MRS haha just kidding (no he’s not)? READ MORE »

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Right-Wing Media Cover Up Senate Republicans' Obstructionism
Following the release of a report on the legislative business conducted
by the Senate, conservative media have tried to cover up Republican
obstructionism in order to label the Democratic-controlled Senate as
"lazy" and "do-nothing." In fact, Senate Republicans have repeatedly
used procedural tricks to block measures that would otherwise have
passed the Senate. Read More

Federal Study On Effectiveness Of Food Stamps Nearly Absent From TV News
On April 9, the U.S. Department of Agriculture published a study
finding that food stamps reduced the "prevalence, depth, and severity"
of poverty between 2000 and 2009 and that their effects were especially
strong during the recession, thanks to the stimulus. Television news
outlets have all but ignored this story-- it has been mentioned only
once on broadcast and cable news programming since April 9. Read More

No Oxygen: Michigan Media Silent As State Passes ALEC Bill Limiting Compensation For Asbestos Victims
Last week, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) approved a bill that curbs the
ability of asbestos-exposure victims to recover losses from some
companies that are legally responsible. The bill was pushed by the
American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and Crown Holdings, Inc., a
Fortune 500 corporation trying to legislate its way out of compensating
cancer and mesothelioma victims who were exposed to asbestos by a
company it purchased. According to a Media Matters analysis, Michigan's two largest newspapers, the Detroit Free Press and the Grand Rapids Press, have been utterly silent on the bill from introduction to its passage. Read More

Fox Falsely Claims Obama Opposes "Giving The Middle Class A Tax Break"
Fox hosts attacked President Obama for his opposition to Republican
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's Small Business Tax Cut Act, claiming
the bill would give "the middle class a tax break" and "creates
thousands of jobs." In fact, Obama has threatened to veto Cantor's bill
specifically because it does not target the middle class; as experts
have said, Cantor's bill would disproportionately benefit the wealthy
and create few to no new jobs. Read More

Fox News personalities have repeatedly attacked the Buffett
Rule, which would require the rich to pay their fair share in taxes. At
the same time, Fox News personalities have pushed for tax increases on
the poor, arguing that they should have more "skin in the game."

Fox Attacks Efforts To Make The Rich Pay Their Fair Share In Taxes

Senate Republicans Block Legislation To Implement The Buffett Rule And Ensure The Rich Pay Their Fair Share.
On April 16, a majority of senators voted in favor of legislation that
would set a minimum effective tax rate for annual income in excess of $1
million. But Senate Republicans blocked the legislation with a
filibuster. [Senate vote 65, 4/16/12]

On Fox, Krauthammer Said The Buffett Rule Is A "Gimmick" That "Won't Expand The Economy Or Spur Economic Growth."
Media personalities on Fox have repeatedly attacked the legislation at
issue. For instance, on the April 16 edition of Fox News' Special Report with Bret Baier, Charles Krauthammer dismissed the legislation as a "gimmick":

BRET BAIER: I think we are at a consensus on this panel. I want to
take a live look at the Senate floor. There are 44 no votes on
so-called Buffett rule. This is based on the billionaire investor Warren
Buffett who advocates the wealthy pay the same tax rate of the
subordinates and would impose 30 percent minimum rate on people earning
more than $2 million a year. Then it would be phase phased in, that 30
percent minimum rate, on anybody earning $1 million a year. It will fail
in the Senate since there are 44 no votes already. Significance here,
what about this? And the president talking about it every stump speech.
[...]
BAIER: Charles, how do Republicans push back on what the Obama administration sees as a rich, political point?
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER (Fox News contributor): Well, first, to point out
it's gimmick. Even the liberals are saying, even though the "Washington
Post" some legislators admitted it's nothing but a gimmick, it will do
nothing to help the deficit.
BAIER: But it's a $47 billion gimmick. They are coming out and saying
over ten years, $47 billion could be used for x number of
infrastructure jobs, whatever.
KRAUTHAMMER: Yes. I'm not sure that people buy that. If you point out
this is dumbing of the capital gains tax. You have to make a case. It
certainly won't expand the economy or spur economic growth as Obama
pretends and he said now twice in the last week. If anything it will
retard economic expansion. And decrease the number of jobs because it
takes away investment and decreases the amount of investment.
Historically in the last 60 years when you raise capital gains tax it
retards growth, and when you lower it, it increases it. That's why
Kennedy and Reagan had economic growth as a result of reducing the
capital gains tax. That is not a sound bite unless you speak really
quickly, but it's a case that can be made, and Republicans are going to
have to do it. [Fox News, Special Report, 4/16/12, via Nexis]

The Five's Dana Perino Said The Buffett Rule "Won't Do A Single Thing." During the April 16 edition of Fox News' The Five,
co-host Dana Perino pointed out that commentators and economists have
called the Buffett Rule a "political gimmick," and suggested it "won't
do a single thing." Furthermore, co-host Greg Gutfeld suggested that
agreeing with the Buffett Rule would be "playing into class warfare":

ERIC BOLLING (co-host): I got to break in, Bob. I'll get back to you in a second.
FOX News alert -- you are looking live at the Senate floor where
lawmakers are moments away from a vote on the so-called Buffett Rule.
Dana, the Buffett Rule. It's likely going to fail, but nonetheless.
PERINO: Well, roundly ridiculed across the board from the most
liberal to the most conservative commentators and economists as a
political gimmick that won't have anything to do -- it's amazing that
Senator Reid has not done a single thing to call up a budget, even if it
was for his political gimmick to show that they have ability to pass a
budget. But they have time to do this which won't do a single thing. And
across the board, everyone knows this.
GUTFELD: The thing that gets me, the real scoundrels in all of this
is the patriotic millionaires, the people that have been pushing for
these taxes, because their name suggest by patriotic millionaires, that
if you don't agree with taxing the rich, playing into class warfare, you
are not patriotic.
PERINO: Anti-American. [Fox News, The Five, 4/16/12, via Nexis]

O'Reilly: Obama Proposed The Buffett Rule "Because He's A Class Warfare Guy." From the April 13 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor:

BILL O'REILLY: Now, "The Wall Street Journal" says that if you do
institute the Buffett Rule whereby no matter how you got you income, it
would be taxed at 30 if you have over a $1 million in assets or in money
coming in, it would only raise $4 to $5 billion a year. And then if you
raised the marginal tax rate on high earners, that would raise some
more money. Isn't that worthy that he get the debt down?
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER (Fox News contributor): It is ridiculous. It's a
rounding error of a rounding error. Its lunch money, I did the math on
this. The joint committee of taxation said yes we're bringing about $4
billion to $5 billion a year. So if you were to collect the Buffett tax
for the next 250 years that's longer than the life of our republic. It
would take in less than the deficit spending Obama engaged in last year
alone. It's a triviality. It will do nothing about nothing. In fact --
(CROSSTALK)
O'REILLY: So it's all about -- it's all about --
KRAUTHAMMER: -- misdirection. It's misdirection.
O'REILLY: Right, well it's working.
KRAUTHAMMER: It's misdirection, it's saying look over here at the -- it is working. Demagoguery often works.
O'REILLY: Yes let me just give you the stats here. Ok in the latest
Gallup poll, they asked would you favor Congress passing a new law that
would require households earning $1 million a year to pay 30 percent of
their income in taxes: 60 percent yes; 37 percent no; 3 percent don't
know. But among Independents, 63 percent yes and 33 percent no.
But I think the folks, just basically want -- they're buying the fair
share argument the President is putting out. They're buying that.
KRAUTHAMMER: Why do you think the President proposed it in the first place?
(CROSSTALK)
O'REILLY: Because he's a class warfare guy. [Fox News, The O'Reilly Factor, 4/17/12, via Nexis]

VARNEY: Welcome to the JOURNAL EDITORIAL REPORT. I'm Stuart Varney, in this week for Paul Gigot.
Well, you just heard President Obama invoking Ronald Reagan, and
claiming that his latest plan to tax the rich is all about fairness. The
president officially endorsed the so-called Buffett Rule in the swing
state of Florida Tuesday, calling for a minimum 30 percent tax on those
making more than a million dollars a year. His campaign clearly thinks
it is a political winner, but is it good policy?
Let's ask "Wall Street Journal" columnist and deputy editor, Dan
Henninger; columnist, Mary Anastasia O'Grady; assistant editorial page
editor, James Freeman; and Washington columnist, Kim Strassel.
Dan, to you first. I call this class warfare. [Fox News, Journal Editorial Report, 4/14/12, via Nexis]

Fox's Ed Rollins: Obama Wanting To "Eliminate The Capital
Gains Tax" And Wanting "Big Tax Reform" Is "Part Of This War Against The
Rich" -- "This Is Class Warfare." From the April 13 edition of Fox News' Hannity:

SEAN HANNITY: Now, earlier today, the White House released President
Obama's tax returns. And the numbers are already causing a problem for
his reelection team. Now, in 2011, the Obama's reported income was about
$790,000. And they paid roughly $162,000 in taxes. Now, here is the
thing. The President has crisscrossed the country trying to sell his so-
called Buffet Rule but based on how much money they made last year,
this would not apply to the Obamas. And in their apparent attempt to
minimize the criticism, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney put out a
statement today which reads impart, "Under the President's own tax
proposals including the expiration of the high income tax cuts and
limitations on the value of tax preferences for high income households.
He would pay more in taxes while ensuring that we cut taxes for the
middle-class and those trying to get in it."
Joining me now with reaction, FOX News contributor Ed Rollins and
from the FOX Business Network Nicole Petallides. You know what the
dumbest thing is though in all of this, Joe Biden, 1.5 percent of income
in charity. You know, how many years does he have to go through this
criticism before he ponies up some money like the rest of America and
donates.
NICOLE PETALLIDES (Fox Business): He should know better. His whole
tax return is being scrutinized. He should give more at least while he
is in office and be smart about it.
HANNITY: Bill Clinton at least gave some used underwear Ed, give something.
ED ROLLINS (Fox News contributor): It's a free big house from the
government. So, he can give whatever his rent would be normally. The
idiocy of this whole. This is political theater. You know, if the
President wants to eliminate the capital gains tax which is where these
people basically take it. Then stand up and say that. Say, I want a big
tax reform, I want to do this and you get pillared. This is all part of
this war against the rich. This classwarfare and the truth of the matter
is, you can go back a few years ago, and Warren Buffett took $100,000 a
year in salary, 150,000 in salary. If Warren Buffet wants to pay more
in taxes, he can take all of it. [Fox News, Hannity, 4/13/12, via Nexis]

For more examples of Fox attacking the Buffett Rule and other attempts to require the rich to pay their fair share, click here, here, and here.

Meanwhile, Fox Calls For Working Americans To Put "More Skin In The Game"

Cavuto: Working Americans Should Put "More Skin In The Game." From the April 12 edition of Fox News' Your World with Neil Cavuto:

NEIL CAVUTO (host): It's more than that. What bothers me most about
this, maybe because, as I said, I am FOX's resident nerd and I cover
this sort of stuff. I did cover Ronald Reagan and the tax revolution
closely. I guess that bespeaks both my age and my nerdiness and how long
track it is.
But one of the things that I cannot stress enough to folks is this is
not a right or left issue to me. This is a right or wrong issue
that Ronald Reagan trying to address the idea that everyone have skin in
the game, and that if you were either very poor and trying to dodge
taxes or you were very rich and trying to dodge taxes, there should be
nothing in our tax code that would allow that to happen.
And that is what he wanted to eradicate in 1985 and 1986. Now, I
think it is worth pointing out that this president has not pointed out
that talking about putting more skin in the game, half the filers in
this country are not filing at all, because they don't owe any federal
income taxes at all.
That is not to dismiss what they are paying in Social Security and
Medicare-related taxes. I am not minimizing maybe the vast majority of
them being wonderful Americans. I am saying that half the eligible
filers in this country are not paying any federal income taxes in this
country.
Yet the president has twisted this around to make it like a
modern-day Ronald Reagan insult, and that is what is insulting. [Fox
News, Your World with Neil Cavuto, 4/12/12, via Nexis]

Ingraham Suggested Romney Should Talk About "Making It Easier
For Every Person To Pay Taxes And For Everyone To Have Skin In The
Game." During the April 17 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends,
Fox News contributor Laura Ingraham said the rich already pay "the
lion's share of the tax burden" while "a lot of people ... pay nothing."
She went on to say that former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney "can
talk about tax simplification and making it easier for every person to
pay taxes and for everyone to have skin in the game." [Fox News, Fox & Friends, 4/17/12, via Media Matters]

Frequent Fox Guest Amilya Antonetti Falsely Claims "Almost
Half Of People Pay No Taxes At All," And Suggests A "Pay What You Use"
Tax System So Everyone Contributes. During the April 17 edition of Fox Business' Cavuto,
frequent Fox News guest Amilya Antonetti falsely claimed "almost half
of people pay no taxes at all" but was quickly corrected by guest host
Liz MacDonald saying: "federal income taxes." Antoneetti then suggested a
new "pay what you use" or "pay what you purchase" tax system in order
to get everyone to, no matter how small, pay taxes. [Fox Business, Cavuto, 4/17/12, via Media Matters]

For more examples of Fox calling for working Americans to pay their supposed "fair share," click here

However, Working Americans Already Have "Skin In The Game"

CBPP: Income Tax Number "Greatly Overstates The Share Of Households That Do Not Pay Any Federal Taxes." The
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities wrote that the fact that nearly
half of Americans don't pay any federal income tax "ignores the
substantial amounts of other federal taxes -- especially the payroll tax
-- that many of these households pay." CBPP continued: "As a result, it
greatly overstates the share of households that do not pay any federal
taxes. Data from the Urban Institute-Brookings Tax Policy Center show
only about 14 percent of households paid neither federal income tax nor
payroll tax in 2009, despite the high unemployment and temporary tax
cuts that marked that year." [Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 5/31/11]

Journalist David Cay Johnston: "When It Comes To State And
Local Taxes, The Poor Bear A Heavier Burden Than The Rich In Every State
Except Vermont." In an article outlining "a few points about
taxes and the economy that you may not know," Reuters columnist David
Cay Johnston, a former New York Times reporter who won the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the tax code, wrote:

Data from the Tax Foundation show that in 2008, the average income for the bottom half of taxpayers was $15,300.
This year the first $9,350 of income is exempt from taxes for singles
and $18,700 for married couples, just slightly more than in 2008. That
means millions of the poor do not make enough to owe income taxes.
But they still pay plenty of other taxes, including federal payroll
taxes. Between gas taxes, sales taxes, utility taxes and other taxes, no
one lives tax-free in America.

When it comes to state and local taxes, the poor bear a heavier
burden than the rich in every state except Vermont, the Institute on
Taxation and Economic Policy calculated from official data. In Alabama,
for example, the burden on the poor is more than twice that of the top 1
percent. The one-fifth of Alabama families making less than $13,000 pay
almost 11 percent of their income in state and local taxes, compared
with less than 4 percent for those who make $229,000 or more. [Willamette Week, 4/13/11]

CBPP: "86 Percent Of Working Households Pay More In Payroll Taxes Than In Federal Income Taxes." CBPP reported:

The reality is that the income tax is one of a number of types of
taxes that individuals pay, both over the course of their lifetimes and
in a given year, and it makes little sense to treat it as though it were
the only one that matters. Some 86 percent of working households pay
more in payroll taxes than in federal income taxes. In fact, low- and
moderate-income people pay a much larger share of their incomes in
federal payroll taxes than high-income people do: taxpayers in the
bottom 20 percent of the income scale paid an average of 8.8 percent of
their incomes in payroll taxes in 2007, compared to just 1.6 percent for
taxpayers in the top 1 percent of the income distribution.